Clinton puts end to her historic campaign

Runner-up to backers: 'Do all we can to help elect Barack Obama'

by Anne E. Kornblut - Jun. 8, 2008 12:00 AMWashington Post

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Clinton, the most successful female presidential candidate in U.S. history, ended her campaign Saturday with a forceful promise to help elect Sen. Barack Obama - and the declaration that, even though she had failed to "shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling," a gender barrier had been crossed.

Four days after Obama secured the delegates to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton gave him her unqualified endorsement, finally putting to rest questions about whether she would help unite the party for the general election. In generous and, at times, soaring terms, Clinton described her cause as united with Obama's, saying that electing him would achieve the goals of universal health care, a strong economy and the end of the war in Iraq.

"We may have started on separate journeys, but today our paths have merged," Clinton said.

After Clinton's speech, Obama issued a statement thanking her and praising her "valiant and historic campaign."

"She shattered barriers on behalf of my daughters and women everywhere, who now know that there are no limits to their dreams," he said. "And she inspired millions with her strength, courage and unyielding commitment to the cause of working Americans. Our party and our country are stronger because of the work she has done throughout her life, and I'm a better candidate for having had the privilege of competing with her in this campaign."

Technically, Clinton suspended her campaign and did not formally give up her candidacy. The move allows her to keep her delegates, continue fundraising to pay off debt and may ensure her a more prominent role at the Democratic National Convention.

Clinton, who began her candidacy as the overwhelming favorite to win her party's nomination, discouraged rehashing the long and divisive Democratic primary campaign, instead asking her supporters - some of whom, still resentful, booed when she mentioned her former rival during the speech - to "take our energy, our passion, our strength and to do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States."

She continued: "Life is too short, time is too precious and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president, and I hope and pray that all of you will join me in that effort."

It was a final, emotional end of a year-and-a-half-long effort in which Clinton won more than 17 million votes and dozens of primary contests.

Clinton was met with a deafening roar the moment she entered the atrium at the National Building Museum, where thousands of supporters gathered for her speech. "Well, this isn't exactly the party I planned," she began, smiling broadly. With her were her daughter, Chelsea; her husband, former President Bill Clinton and her mother, Dorothy Rodham, who turned 89 years three days earlier.

The crowd's undiminished enthusiasm was an indication of the challenges facing Obama. Ann Lewis, one of Clinton's friends and advisers, acknowledged that that kind of fidelity "is not switched with the turn of a faucet."

But Clinton expressed no ambivalence about ending her bid and turning her attention to the fall campaign. Although she did not mention Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, by name, she repeatedly encouraged her supporters to remember why they had worked for her and why Obama would fulfill those same goals. She said nearly a dozen times that it is imperative to "help elect Barack Obama our president."

And in one of her most passionate descriptions of social progress, Clinton characterized both Obama's success and her own as the result of historic struggles that must continue. At one point, she said she wanted to talk on "a personal note" and said she identified with women who have faced discrimination in their lives.

"Like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious, and I want to build an America that respects and embraces the potential of every least one of us," Clinton said.

She noted that, even as she spoke, the 50th female astronaut was headed into outer space on a mission.

"If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House," said Clinton, who throughout the campaign often mentioned her own thwarted desire to be an astronaut at a time when women were not allowed to apply.

"And although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it," she said.

Clinton, 60, said that her own journey will make it easier for other women in the future. "You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States," she said. "And that is truly remarkable, my friends."